Hitachi fined over LCD price fixing

Following three other companies before it, Hitachi has admitted to price fixing LCD displays, most of which were sold to Dell and Motorola.

Over the last few months, LG, Sharp and Chunghwa Picture Tubes have each admitted to price fixing the LCD market and were forced to pay fines ranging from $65 million USD for Chunghwa, to $400 million USD for LG, the largest group of the three.

According to the Department of Justice, Hitachi will cooperate with the ongoing investigation and will pay a $31 million USD fine for the price fixing of "TFT-LCD sold to Dell for use in desktop monitors and notebook computers from April 1, 2001, through March 31, 2004."

"Hitachi joins three other multinational companies who have admitted to their involvement in fixing prices for LCD panels sold to U.S. companies and that have already paid criminal fines totaling more than $585 million,"added Scott D. Hammond, Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department's Antitrust Division. "This case should send a strong message to multinational companies operating in the United States that when it comes to enforcing the U.S. antitrust laws we mean business."

That's the biggest and bitterest rub isn't it ? The money is peanuts to these corporate giants so who loses out ?

Only the customer who was screwed with the price in the first place meanwhile the government wins twice - first time when they pick up more sales tax on overpriced models and secondly when they pocket the money from the fines... I don't see them arranging to perform a Robin Hood and redistribute all the money that LG etc stole from customers in the first place - more likely they will continue in their traditonal role as Robin Blind

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 12 Mar 2009 @ 8:58

yah dell computers.
my sister-in-law called me in fall and asked which computer is good.
i just told her stay away from dell. so guess what she bought a dell.
and with in 2 weeks the the cd-rom went out followed by the power supply which also took out the mother board.it was covered by the warrenty but just goes to show what kind of crap dell is